Alex Swarbrick

Co-Lead, Strategic Program in Dynamic Cancer Ecosystems

Petrie Chair of Breast Cancer Research

NHMRC Senior Research Fellow

ORCID

Alex graduated with a Bsc (Hons I) in Molecular and Cellular Biology from UNSW in 1995. After obtaining his PhD in 2003 he undertook postdoctoral training with Nobel laureate J. Michael Bishop at the University of California, San Francisco, supported by a CJ Martin Travelling Fellowship from the NHMRC.

In 2008 Alex established the Tumour Progression Laboratory in the Garvan Institute and in 2012 was appointed co-Head of the Breast Translational Oncology Program in the Kinghorn Cancer Centre. In 2021 Alex was appointed as co-leader of the Garvan Institute’s Strategic Program in Dynamic Cancer Ecosystems, one of 6 programs leading the Garvan Institute’s scientific direction.

Alex is the immediate-past convenor of the Lorne Cancer Conference, Australia’s pre-eminent multi-disciplinary cancer research conference. He co-founded the Australian Translational Breast & Prostate Cancer Symposium with Elgene Lim.

He chairs the Cancer Research Committee of the Cancer Council NSW and co-chairs the UNSW Cancer Theme, also with Elgene Lim. Alex also co-chairs the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee at the Garvan Institute.

  • The breast and prostate tumour microenvironment

    Cellular Genomics, including single cell RNA-Seq and spatial transcriptomics

    Translational research

    Tumour immunology

    Metastasis

  • 2020- Petre Chair of Breast Cancer Research

    2019- National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellowship

    2013 - National Health and Medical Research Council Career Development Fellowship II

    2012 - National Breast Cancer Foundation Fellowship

    2011 - NSW Premier’s Award for Outstanding Research Fellow 2011

    2009 - CINSW Early Career Fellowship

    2007 - Sydney University Medal for Excellence in Medical Research

  • 2003 - PhD, University of New South Wales, Sydney - Australia

    1995 - Molecular Biology, 1st Class Honours, University of New South Wales, Sydney - Australia

    • Australian Provisional Patent Application - Methods of treating breast cancer and reagents therefore

    • Australian Provisional Patent Application - Methods of treating neuroblastoma and reagents therefore

    • Australian Provisional Patent Application 2018903546 - Phenotypic and molecular characterisation of single cells

  • Wu, S. Z., G. Al-Eryani, D. Roden, S. Junankar, et al., E. Lim, S. X. Liu, J. Lundeberg, C. Perou and A. Swarbrick (2021) "An integrated multi-omic single-cell and spatial atlas of human breast cancers." Nature Genetics. In Press.

    Hickey, T.E., Selth, L.A., Chia, K.M., Laven-Law, G., Milioli, H.H., Roden, D., Jindal, S., Hui, M., Finlay-Schultz, J., Ebrahimie, E., et al. Swarbrick, A., Lim, E., Carroll, J., Tilley, W. (2021). "The androgen receptor is a tumor suppressor in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer" Nature Medicine 27, 310-320.

    Sunny Z. Wu, D. L. R., Ghamdan Al-Eryani, Nenad Bartonicek, Kate Harvey, Aurélie S. Cazet, Chia-Ling Chan Simon Junankar, Mun N. Hui, Laurence Gluch, Jane Beith, Andrew Parker, Elizabeth Robbins, Davendra Segara, Cindy Mak, Caroline Cooper, Sanjay Warrier, Joseph Powell, Sandra O’Toole, Elgene Lim and Alexander Swarbrick (2021). "Cryopreservation of human cancers conserves tumour heterogeneity for single-cell multi-omics analysis." Genome Medicine 13, 81.

    Ginhoux, F. et al (2021) "A Universal annotation of human monocytes and macrophages in human health and disease" Cell Immunity In Press.

    Andersson,A et al, & J. Lundeberg (2021) " Spatial Deconvolution of HER2-positive Breast Tumors Reveals Novel Intercellular Relationships" Nature Communications In Press.

    Holliday, H., D. Roden, S. Junankar, S. Z. Wu, e. al, J. Visvader, M. Molloy and A. Swarbrick (2021) "Inhibitor of Differentiation 4 (ID4) represses myoepithelial differentiation of mammary stem cells through its interaction with HEB." iScience. 24, 102072.

    Wu, S. Z., D. Roden, al., E. Lim, S. X. Liu and A. Swarbrick (2020) "Stromal cell diversity associated with immune evasion in human triple-negative breast cancer" EMBO Journal 39, e104063. Featured in a news and views article by Kalluri et al "A map of human breast cancer: new players in stromal‐immune crosstalk" EMBO J 2020.

    Baker, L.A., H. Holliday, D. Roden, C. Krisp, S.Z. Wu, S. Junankar, . . . A. Swarbrick, Proteogenomic analysis of Inhibitor of Differentiation 4 (ID4) in basal-like breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res, 2020. 22(1): p. 63.

    Owen, K.L., L.J. Gearing, D.J. Zanker, N.K. Brockwell, W.H. Khoo, D.L. Roden, . . . B.S. Parker, Prostate cancer cell-intrinsic interferon signaling regulates dormancy and metastatic outgrowth in bone. EMBO Rep, 2020. 21(6): p. e50162.

    Piggin, C. L., D. L. Roden, A. M. K. Law, M. P. Molloy, C. Krisp, A. Swarbrick, M. J. Naylor, M. Kalyuga, W. Kaplan, S. R. Oakes, D. Gallego-Ortega, S. J. Clark, J. S. Carroll, N. Bartonicek and C. J. Ormandy (2020). "ELF5 modulates the estrogen receptor cistrome in breast cancer." PLoS Genet 16(1): e1008531.

    Singh, M., G. Al-Eryani, S. Carswell, J. M. Ferguson, J. Blackburn, K. Barton, D. Roden, F. Luciani, T. Giang Phan, S. Junankar, K. Jackson, C. C. Goodnow, M. A. Smith and A. Swarbrick (2019). "High-throughput targeted long-read single cell sequencing reveals the clonal and transcriptional landscape of lymphocytes." Nat Commun10(1): 3120.

    Cazet, A. S., M. N. Hui, B. L. Elsworth, S. Z. Wu, D. Roden, C. L. Chan, J. N. Skhinas, R. Collot, J. Yang, K. Harvey, M. Z. Johan, C. Cooper, R. Nair, D. Herrmann, A. McFarland, N. Deng, M. Ruiz-Borrego, F. Rojo, J. M. Trigo, S. Bezares, R. Caballero, E. Lim, P. Timpson, S. O'Toole, D. N. Watkins, T. R. Cox, M. S. Samuel, M. Martin and A. Swarbrick (2018). "Targeting stromal remodeling and cancer stem cell plasticity overcomes chemoresistance in triple negative breast cancer." Nature Communications 9(1): 2897.

    Lin, H. M., I. Nikolic, J. Yang, L. Castillo, N. Deng, C. L. Chan, N. K. Yeung, E. Dodson, B. Elsworth, C. Spielman, B. Y. Lee, Z. Boyer, K. J. Simpson, R. J. Daly, L. G. Horvath and A. Swarbrick (2018). "MicroRNAs as potential therapeutics to enhance chemosensitivity in advanced prostate cancer." Sci Rep 8(1): 7820.

    Lin, H. M., K. L. Mahon, C. Spielman, H. Gurney, G. Mallesara, M. R. Stockler, P. Bastick, K. Briscoe, G. Marx, A. Swarbrick and L. G. Horvath (2017). "Phase 2 study of circulating microRNA biomarkers in castration-resistant prostate cancer." Br J Cancer 116(8): 1002-1011.

    Nikolic, I., B. Elsworth, E. Dodson, S. Z. Wu, C. M. Gould, P. Mestdagh, G. M. Marshall, L. G. Horvath, K. J. Simpson and A. Swarbrick (2017). "Discovering cancer vulnerabilities using high-throughput micro-RNA screening." Nucleic Acids Research 45(22): 12657-12670.

    Beckers, R. K., C. Selinger, R. Vilain, J. Madore, J. S. Wilmott, K. Harvey, A. Holliday, C. L. Cooper, E. Robbins, D. Gillet, C. W. Kennedy, L. Gluch, H. Carmalt, C. Mak, S. Warrier, H. E. Gee, C. Chan, A. McLean, E. Walker, C. M. McNeil, J. M. Beith, A. Swarbrick, R. A. Scolyer and S. A. O'Toole (2016). "PDl1 expression in triple-negative breast cancer is associated with tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes and improved outcome." Pathology 48 Suppl 1: S146-S147.

    Junankar, S., B. L., D. L. Roden, R. Nair, B. Elsworth, D. Gallego-Ortega, P. Lacaze, A. Cazet, I. Nikolic, W. Siang-Teo, J. Yang, A. McFarland, K. Harvey, M. J. Naylor, S. R. Lakhani, P. T. Simpson, A. Raghavendra, J. Saunus, J. Madore, W. Kaplan, C. Ormandy, E. K. A. Millar, S. O'Toole, K. Yun and A. Swarbrick (2015). "ID4 controls mammary stem cells and marks breast cancers with a stem cell-like phenotype " Nature Communications6: 6548.

    Junankar, S., G. Shay, J. Jurczyluk, N. Ali, J. Down, N. Pocock, A. Parker, A. Nguyen, S. Sun, B. Kashemirov, C. E. McKenna, P. I. Croucher, A. Swarbrick, K. Weilbaecher, T. G. Phan and M. J. Rogers (2015). "Real-time intravital imaging establishes tumor-associated macrophages as the extraskeletal target of bisphosphonate action in cancer." Cancer Discovery 5(1): 35-42.

    Phua, Y. W., A. Nguyen, D. Roden, B. Elsworth, N. Deng, I. Nikolic, J. Yang, A. McFarland, R. Russell, W. Kaplan, M. Cowley, R. Nair, E. Zotenko, S. O'Toole, S. X. Tan, D. E. James, S. J. Clark, H. Kouros-Mehr and A. Swarbrick (2015). "MicroRNA profiling of the pubertal mouse mammary gland identifies miR-184 as a candidate breast tumour suppressor gene." Breast Cancer Res 17(1): 83.

    O'Toole SA, Machalek DA, Shearer RF, Millar EK, Nair R, Schofield P, McLeod D, Coooper CL, McNeil CM, McFarland A, Nguyen A, Ormandy CJ, Qiu MR, Rabinovich B, Martelotto LG, Vu D, Hanningan GE, Musgrove EA, Christ D, Sutherland RL, Watkins DN, Swarbrick A. Hedgehog overexpression is associated with stromal interactions and predicts for poor outcome in breast cancer. Cancer Research, 71:4002-4014 (2011).

    Swarbrick A, Woods SL, Shaw A, Balakrishnan A, Phua Y, Nguyen A, Chanthery Y, Lim L, Ashton LJ, Judson RL, Huskey N, Blelloch R, Haber M, Norris MD, Lengyel P, Hackett CS, Preiss T, Chetcuti A, Sullivan CS, Marcusson EG, Weiss W, L'Etoile N, Goga A. miR-380-5p represses p53 to control cellular survival and is associated with poor outcome in MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma. Nat Medicine, 16:1134-1140, doi:10.1038/nm.2227 (2010).

 

Research Level

Senior Principal Research Fellow

Conjoint academic position

Professor, St Vincent's Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney

Contact

email:

a[dot]swarbrick[at]garvan[dot]org[dot]au

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